During the first week of November, members of the American Society of Landscape Architects and their colleagues from around the country – over 5,000 strong – met at the San Diego Convention Center. Saving the world was somewhere on the agenda. Could they be the group with the most influence on human habitat in the future, [...]
For many stressed-out families, spending more time in the natural world — a nature stimulus package — may be just what the doctor and the economist ordered. Here are a few of the benefits, updated from an earlier post: 1. With high gas prices, families are rediscovering both the joy and the cost-effectiveness of getaways [...]
Why is the future so often portrayed as a post-apocalyptic dystopia, filled with human brutality and stripped of nature? For decades, our culture has struggled with two addictions: to oil and to despair. But what if our lives were as immersed in nature as they are in technology every day? What if we not only conserved nature, but created [...]
Want Your Kids to Get Into Harvard? Tell ‘em To Go Outside. I once met an instructor who trains young people to become the pilots of cruise ships. He described the two kinds of students he encounters. One kind grew up mainly indoors, spending hours playing video games and working on computers. These students are [...]
In 2009, Janet Ady of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stood before a crowd of grassroots leaders gathered by the Children & Nature Network. She held up an outsized pharmacy bottle. Within the bottle was a physician’s prescription – one that would be as appropriate for adults as it would be for children. The [...]
“I recall my father’s dark tanned neck, creased with lines of dust, as he tilled our garden. I ran ahead of him, pulling rocks and bones and toys from his path.” — The Nature Principle In “Last Child in the Woods,” I focused on why children need nature. In my new book, “The Nature Principle,” [...]
Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, by word and example, that any movement — any culture —will fail if it cannot paint a picture of a world that people will want to go to. As others have said, his speech was not called “I Have a Nightmare.” For decades, our culture has struggled with two [...]
Got dirt? “In South Carolina, a truckload of dirt is the same price as a video game!” reports Norman McGee, a father in that state who bought a small pickup-load of dirt for his daughter and friends. As McGee’s photo shows, the dirt was a great success. I told his story a couple years ago in [...]
Several years ago, Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI, asked me to come to Seattle to speak at the annual gathering of the nationwide REI community. Sally and I sat on stage and talked for an hour about the importance of connecting children to nature. I already admired Sally, but as she wrapped up the [...]
Can libraries connect children to nature? You bet. “Today, via a library’s outdoor learning space, librarians are participating in the growing movement to connect children with the environment,” write Tracy Delgado-LaStella and Sandra Feinberg in this month’s issue of American Libraries magazine. The excellent piece describes the efforts of Middle Country Public Library in Centereach, New York, which [...]
Many of us still remember a time when playing in nature was considered normal and expected. Here’s a question: Will we leave this earth and take that memory with us? Or will we do what it takes to connect all children, in every kind of neighborhood, to nature? The Children & Nature Network needs your [...]
Adapted excerpts from Richard Louv’s plenary keynote address to the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference, Oct. 2, 2010 in San Francisco. On Oct. 1, Louv made similar remarks at the UCSF Conference, Children First: Promoting Ecological Health for the Whole Child. More than three decades ago, when Dr. Mary Brown’s children were growing up [...]
Parenting advice can go to extremes. Regarding outdoor play, some experts sternly warn parents about all the dangers, real or assumed — from strangers to noxious weeds – lurking outside the front door. At the same time, parents sometimes find themselves shamed for their fear. “With all of the talk about giving kids leverage and freedom [...]
Updated June 1: As First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the Let’s Move Outside initiative, expanding her campaign to solve childhood obesity, a broad coalition representing the business and non-profit communities announced a national strategic partnership called the Outdoors Alliance for Kids (OAK). OAK brings together the YMCA of the USA, REI, Sierra Club, National Wildlife [...]
Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the White House Childhood Obesity Summit as part of her work with the newly formed Childhood Obesity Task Force and its accompanying Let’s Move campaign. The Summit was attended by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, and Martin LeBlanc, [...]
